LEGITIMACY	419
them. They are not mutually antagonistic. It was easy to argue
in this manner:
The father cannot be granted the status of a husband, since the woman
whom he purported to marry is, owing to the continuance of her earlier
marriage, the wife of another man. Therefore the children of the father
by this woman cannot be regarded as legitimate.
Nevertheless, the conclusion is a non sequitur. The issue was the
status of the children, not of their parents. The fact that Mrs.
Buxton could not claim to be Mrs. Shaw was not necessarily
a bar to the legitimate status of the children. The legitimacy
of a child happened at the time of the case to depend according
to English domestic law upon the validity of the marriage of
which he was born, but this is not and was not the case in all
legal systems. If the two questions are separable by the law of
the child's domicil of origin, they should be kept separate by an
English court when dealing with a conflict of laws case. The
courts of other countries have found no difficulty in this. Thus
in South Africa it was held that the children of a polygamous
union, born when the father was domiciled in India, were to be
regarded as legitimate in Natal, which was his domicil at death.
For the purpose of fixing the rate of succession duty payable
on the father's death, the status of the mother as a 'wife' was
tested by the internal law of Natal, but the status of the children
was referred to their domicil of origin.1
*It is essential*, said Innes C.J., 'to bear in mind the distinction be-
tween the points to be decided in each instance. With regard to the wife,
the issue is the validity of the marriage to which she is a party; with
regard to the children, the issue is their right to the status of legitimacy.
The wife's position cannot be considered apart from the marriage, but
the position of the children may be.'2
It is submitted that in any event Shaw v. Gould ought to be
regarded as an abnormal decision and one to be interpreted in
the light of the exceptional circumstances involved. *My
opinion in this case*, said Lord Chelmsford, *is founded entirely
upon the peculiar circumstances attending it.*3 It was, indeed,
1	Seedafs Executors v. The Master, [1917] A.D. 302.
2	In the New York case of In re Hall, [1901] 6r App. Div. 266, a woman
obtained a divorce in Dakota that was not regarded as valid in New York. She then
married a man domiciled in Dakota and a child was born of the marriage. It was
held that the child was legitimate for the purpose of taking under the will of a
testator who died domiciled in New York.
3	Shaw v. Gould (1868), L.R. 3 H.L. 55, at p. 79.